Back in May the city council approved Houston and Harris PCS to conduct an assessment of the sewer collection system, including hydro-flushing and closed circuit television (CCTV) inspection and pipeline assessment. Houston and Harris was chosen by a selection committee after the city solicited proposals from qualified contractors.

According to City Manager Dennis Speer, the inspection process basically consists of running a camera down the sewer lines from manhole to manhole to see the condition of the pipes, producing a surprisingly detailed and clear video.

“They can tell you how many feet you are from which manhole so you know exactly where you're at when you see a crack in the line,” he said back in May.

What Speers called “the long-awaited sewer assessment” has finally begun. Houston and Harris Certified CCTV Operator Jeremiah Avila took the time to show a reporter the ropes Wednesday morning, checking out a stretch of sewer near the intersection of Inyo and Alene. The line was dropped down the manhole and Avila seated at his computer, monitoring the action on a computer inside an air-conditioned truck.

Avila explained the process. “Our other truck will come with pressurized water” to clean the line. “They'll jet all the debris out.”

“Then I'll come along with the tractor with the camera sitting on top of it and we'll put it inside the manhole inside the pipe and pretty much press go.”

The small tractor supports “a very high-tech camera” which transmits an image of the sewer pipe to Avila's computer in real time.

Avila explained that he's looking for “cracks, broken pipe. We're just making sure that the pipe is intact and its in good shape.”

The image on the screen was clear and recognizable. It looked a little like a sigmoidoscopy for a sewer.

Suddenly a huge cockroach loomed, causing a reporter to question the scale.

“We're videoing an eight-inch-diameter pipe,” Avila said, adding that the service connections are approximately four inches in diameter.

The notation process is fairly sophisticated. The screen display shows the type of pipe and its diameter along with other information.

The video is used in conjunction with a computer program that tracks location and other data. Location is measured by tenths of a foot and all data ultimately linked to the city's GIS database, an operation potentially involving another contractor.

Once in awhile, Avila stopped and spoke into a recorder., noting structural defects and damage.

“If we see a crack or whatever, we'll stop it at the footage, we'll mark it on our program here and then we'll audio it in for the video for whoever's watching,” he explained.

Page 2 of 2 - The assessment has been going on since June 17, involving roughly 200 manholes. It is scheduled for approximately eight months and will cover thousands of manholes over 162 miles of collection system lines.

When the demonstration concluded Avila then pulled the tractor up out of the manhole. The tractor itself is a small thing, roughly 3 1/2 feet long. He demonstrated the camera's rotation.

He said he spends an average of 15 to 20 minutes at each manhole ― depending on the condition of the pipe. “How many observations, the detail of the pipe,” what kind of shape it's in, “determines how long we take on it.”

Ultimately, the city ends up with a DVD and a hyperlink to the GIS database. The footage show the condition of the lines “so we can come up with a five-year plan on which sewers we need to get in first, either to reconstruct or rehabilitate,” Speer said in May.

Mayor Dan Clark was enthusiastic about the project at that time.

Clark said the process will bring about a much-need improvement to city infrastructure. Sewer issues as “a pretty serious problem,” he said, adding that some of Ridgecrest's extensive network of sewers are over 50 years old, with issues in the form of root intrusion and cracks in pipes. “This is timely and needed for our community,” he said.

The California State Water Resources Control Board issued a general order (GO) which requires cities with collection systems greater than one mile to implement a sanitary sewer management plan (SSMP)/sanitary sewer overflow (SSO) plan. Collection systems assessments are one component of the plan, according to city staff.